BI-CENTENNIAL  CELEBRATION  OF  THE 


Settlement  of  femantown,  Pa„ 

THE  BEGINNING  OE 

GERMAN  EMIGRATION  TO  AMERICA. 


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AN  ADDRESS 


AT  THE  BI-CENTENNIAL  CELEBRATION  OF  THE 

Settlement  of  Sermantown,  Pa., 

AND  THE  BEGINNING  OF 


GERMAN  EMIGRATION  TO  AMERICA, 

B7 

SAMUEL  W.  PENNYPACKER, 

IN  THE  PHILADELPHIA  ACADEMY  OF  MUSIC, 


ON  THE  EVENING  OF  OCTOBER  6TH,  1883. 


1883. 


PENNYFACKER  & ROGERS,  1018  CHESTNUT  6T. 


ADDRESS. 


Ladies  and  Gentlemen: 

The  Teutonic  races  since  the  overthrow  of  the  power 
of  ancient  Rome,  which  they  brought  about,  have 
been  in  the  van  of  thought  and  achievement.  The 
only  rivals  of  the  German  and  the  Dutchman,  in  those 
things  which  mark  broadly  the  pathway  of  human  ad- 
vancement, came  from  the  same  household.  In  the 
sixth  century  a tribe  of  Germans  found  their  way  across 
the  North  Sea  to  an  island  which  in  time  they  made 
their  own,  and  to  which  they  gave  the  name  of  Angle- 
land.  Like  all  of  their  stock,  the  men  of  this  colony 
grew  in  substance  and  developed  in  intelligence,  but 
V they  have  ever  since,  in  times  of  trial  and  difficulty, 
looked  back  to  the  Fatherland  for  guidance  and 
support.  In  1471  a man  named  Caxton  was  in  Cologne 
learning  the  art  of  printing.  He  returned  to  England 
to  impart  to  his  countrymen  a knowledge  of  the  new 
discovery,  and  the  literature  of  Chaucer,  Shakespeare, 
Scott  and  Dickens  became  a possibility.  The  impulse 
which  Martin  Luther  gave  to  human  thought,  when  he 
nailed  his  propositions  to  the  church  door  at  Witten- 
berg, beat  along  the  shores  of  the  Atlantic,  and  the  rev- 
olution of  1688,  bringing  with  it  the  liberty  of  English- 


men,  was  one  of  the  results.  For  the  attainment  of 
that  liberty  England  drove  her  own  royal  line  beyond 
the  seas  and  made  the  Stadtholder  of  Holland  her  king* 
From  his  day  down  to  the  present  time  every  king 
of  England  has  been  a German. 

Early  in  the  seventeenth  century  an  English  admiral 
went  to  Rotterdam  for  a wife.  According  to  Pepys, 
who  described  her  later,  she  was  “a  well-looked,  fat, 
short  old  Dutch  woman,  but  one  that  hath  been  here- 
tofore pretty  handsome,  and,  I believe,  hath  more  wit 
than  her  husband.”  The  son  of  this  woman  was  the 
Quaker,  William  Penn.  He  who  would  know  the  causes 
for  the  settlement  of  Pennsylvania,  the  purest,  and  in 
that  it  gave  the  best  promise  of  what  the  future  was 
to  unfold,  the  most  fateful  of  the  American  colonies,, 
must  go  to  the  Reformation  to  seek  them.  The  time 
has  come  when  men  look  back  through  William  Penn 
and  George  Fox  to  their  masters,  Menno  Simons, 
the  reformer  of  the  Netherlands,  Caspar  Schwenck- 
feld,  the  nobleman  of  Silesia,  and  Jacob  Boehm,  the 
inspired  shoemaker  of  Gorlitz.  In  that  great  upheaval 
of  the  sixteenth  century,  there  were  leaders  who  refused 
to  stop  where  Luther,  Calvin  and  Zuinglius  took  a 
successful  stand.  The  strong,  controlling  thought 
which  underlay  their  teachings  was  that  there  should 
be  no  exercise  of  force  in  religion.  The  baptism  of 
an  infant  was  a compulsory  method  of  bringing  it  into 
the  Church,  and  they  rejected  the  doctrine.  An  oath 
was  a means  of  compelling  the  conscience,  and  they 


2 


refused  to  swear.  Warfare  was  a violent  interference 
with  the  rights  of  others,  and  they  would  take  part  in 
no  wars  even  for  the  purposes  of  self-protection.  More 
than  all  in  its  political  significance  and  effect,  with 
keen  insight  and  clear  view,  hoping  for  themselves 
what  the  centuries  since  have  given  to  us,  they  for  the 
first  time  taught  that  the  injunctions  of  Christ  were 
one  thing  and  the  power  of  man  another,  that  the 
might  of  the  state  should  have  nothing  to  do  with  the 
creed  of  the  church,  and  that  every  man  in  matters  of 
faith  should  be  left  to  his  own  convictions.  Their 
doctrines,  mingled  as  must  be  admitted  with  some 
delusions,  spread  like  wild-fire  throughout  Europe,  and 
their  followers  could  be  found  from  the  mountains  of 
Switzerland  to  the  dikes  of  Holland.  They  were  the 
forlorn  hope  of  the  ages,  and,  coming  into  direct 
conflict  with  the  interests  of  church  and  state,  they 
were  crushed  by  the  concentrated  power  of  both. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  history  of  Christendom  like 
the  suffering  to  which  they  were  subjected,  in  respect 
to  its  extent  and  severity.  The  fumes  from  their 
burning  bodies  went  up  into  the  air  from  every  city 
and  village  along  the  Rhine.  The  stories  of  their 
lives  were  told  by  their  enemies,  and  the  pages  of 
history  were  freighted  with  the  records  of  their  alleged 
misdeeds.  The  name  of  Anabaptist,  which  was  given 
them,  was  made  a byword  and  reproach,  and  we  shrink 
from  it  with  a sense  of  only  half-forgotten  terror  even 
to-day.  The  English  representatives  of  this  move- 


3 


ment  were  the  Quakers.  Picart,  after  telling  that 
some  of  the  Anabaptists  fled  to  England  to  spread 
their  doctrines  there,  says:  “The  Quakers  owe  their 
rise  to  these  Anabaptists.1”  The  doctrine  of  the  inner 
light  was  an  assertion  that  every  man  has  within 
himself  a test  of  truth  upon  which  he  may  rely,  and 
was  in  itself  an  attack  upon  the  binding  character  of 
authority.  The  seed  from  the  sowings  of  Menno, 
wafted  across  from  the  Rhine  to  the  Thames,  were 
planted  on  English  soil  by  George  Fox,  and  were 
brought  by  William  Penn  to  Pennsylvania,  where  no 
man  has  ever  been  molested  because  of  his  religious 
convictions.  Three  times  did  William  Penn,  impelled 
by  a sympathetic  nearness  of  faith  and  methods,  go 
over  to  Holland  and  Germany  to  hold  friendly  converse 
and  discussion  with  these  people,  and  it  was  very 
fitting  that  when  he  had  established  his  province  in 
the  wilds  of  America  he  should  urge  and  prevail 
with  them  to  cross  the  ocean  to  him. 

On  this  day,  two  hundred  years  ago,  thirty-three  of 

them,  men,  women  and  children,  landed  in  Philadelphia. 
The  settlement  of  Germantown  has  a higher  import, 

then,  than  that  thirteen  families  founded  new  homes, 
and  that  a new  burgh,  destined  to  fame  though  it 
was,  was  builded  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  It  has 
a wider  significance,  even,  than  that  here  was  the 
beginning  of  that  immense  emigration  of  Germans 

1.  Picart  was  here  cited  because  he  makes  the  statement  directly  and  In 
few  words.  Upon  this  subject  consult  Barclay’s  Keliglous  Societies  of  the 
Commonwealth,  Hortensius’  Histoire  des  Anabaptistes,  and  Penna.  Maga- 
zine, Vol.  iv,  page  4. 


4 


who  have  since  flocked  to  these  shores.  Those  thirteen 
men,  humble  as  they  may  have  been  individually,  and 
unimportant  as  may  have  been  the  personal  events  of 
their  lives,  holding  as  they  did  opinions  which  were 
banned  in  Europe,  and  which  only  the  fullness  of 
time  could  justify,  standing  as  they  did  on  what  was 
then  the  outer  picket  line  of  civilization,  best  repre- 
sented the  meaning  of  the  colonization  of  Pennsylvania 
and  the  principles  which  lie  at  the  foundation  of  her 
institutions.  Better  far  than  the  Pilgrims  who  landed 
at  Plymouth,  better  even  than  the  Quakers  who 
established  a city  of  brotherly  love,  they  stood  for 
that  spirit  of  universal  toleration  which  found  no 
abiding  place  save  in  America.  Their  feet  were 
planted  directly  upon  that  path  which  leads  from  the 
darkness  of  the  middle  ages  down  to  the  light  of  the 
nineteenth  century,  from  the  oppressions  of  the  past 
to  the  freedom  of  the  present.  Bullinger,  the  great 
reviler  of  the  Anabaptists,  in  detailing  in  1560  their 
many  heresies,  says  they  taught  that  “the  govern- 
ment shall  and  may  not  assume  control  of  questions  of 
religion  or  faith.2”  No  such  attack  upon  the  established 
order  of  things  had  ever  been  made  before,  and  the 
potentates  were  wild  in  their  wrath.  Menno  went  from 
place  to  place  with  a reward  upon  his  head,  men  were 
put  to  death  for  giving  him  shelter,  and  two  hundred 
and  twenty-nine  of  his  followers  were  burned  and  be- 

2.  “Die  Oberkeit  soelle  vnd  moege  sich  der  Religion  oderGloubens  sachen 
nijt  annemmen.”  Der  Widertoulferen  Vrsprung.  p 18. 


5 


headed  in  one  city  alone.  But,  two  centuries  after  Bull- 
inger  wrote,  there  was  put  into  the  constitution  of 
Pennsylvania,  in  almost  identical  language : “ No  human 
authority  can,  in  any  case  whatever,  control  or  interfere 
with  the  right  of  conscience.”  The  fruitage  is  here,  but 
the  planting  and  watering  were  along  the  Rhine.  And 
to-day  the  Mennonites  and  their  descendants  are  to  be 
found  from  the  Delaware  River  to  the  Columbia.  The 
Schwenckfelders,  hunted  out  of  Europe  in  1734,  still 
meet  upon  the  Skippack  on  the  24th  of  every  Septem- 
ber, to  give  thanks  unto  the  Lord  for  their  deliverance. 
This  is  the  tale  which  Lensen,  Kunders,  Lucken,  Tyson, 
Opdengraeff  and  the  rest,  as  they  sat  down  to  weave 
their  cloth  and  tend  their  vines  in  the  woods  of  Ger- 
mantown, had  to  tell  to  the  world.  A great  poet  has 
sung  their  story,  and  you  Germans  will  do  well  to 
keep  the  memory  of  it  green  for  all  time  to  come. 

It  cannot  be  gainsaid  that  the  influence  upon 
American  life  and  institutions  of  that  German  emi- 
gration which  began  with  thirty-three  persons  in 
1683  and  had  swollen  in  1882  to  250,630*,  has  fulfilled 
the  promise  given  by  its  auspicious  commencement. 
The  Quakers  maintained  control  of  their  province 
down  to  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  and  they  were 
enabled  to  do  it  by  the  support  of  the  Germans.  The 
dread  with  which  the  Germans  inspired  the  politicians 
of  the  colonial  days  was  excessive.  In  1727  James 
Logan  wrote  to  the  proprietary:  “You  will  soon  have 
a German  colony  here,  and,  perhaps,  such  a one  as 

6 


Britain  once  received  from  Saxony  in  ye  fifth  century.”' 
Said  Thomas  Graeme  to  Thomas  Penn  in  a letter  in 
1750,  “The  Dutch,  by  their  numbers  and  industry, 
will  soon  become  masters  of  the  province.”  Many 
were  the  devices  to  weaken  them.  It  was  proposed  to 
establish  schools  among  them  where  only  English 
should  be  taught,  to  invalidate  all  German  deeds,  to 
suppress  all  German  printing  presses  and  the  importa- 
tion of  German  books,  and  to  offer  rewards  for  inter- 
marriages. Samuel  Purviance  wrote  to  Colonel  James 
Burd  in  1765  that  the  way  to  do  was  “to  let  it  be 
spread  abroad  through  the  country  that  your  party 
intend  to  come  well-armed  to  the  election,  * * * 

and  that  you  will  thrash  the  sheriff,  every  inspector, 
Quaker  and  mennonist  to  a jelly.”  But  as  a disappointed 
manager  wrote  from  Kingsessing  the  same  year;  “all 
in  vain  was  our  labor.  * * Our  party  at  the  last 

election  have  loosed  all.” 

The  speaker  of  the  first  federal  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives was  a German,  and  with  Simon  Snyder,  in 
1808,  began  the  regime  of  the  eight  German  governors 
of  Pennsylvania.  To  represent  her  military  renown 
during  the  Revolutionary  War,  Pennsylvania  has  put 
the  statue  of  Muhlenberg  in  the  capitol  at  Washington, 
The  terrific  and  bloody  struggle  with  slavery  in  this 
country,  which  ended  at  Appomattox  in  1865,  began 
at  Germantown  so  long  ago  as  1688.  The  Murat  of 
the  Rebellion,  he  who  afterwards  so  sadly  lost  his  life 
among  the  savages  of  the  west,  had  traced  his  lineage 


7 


to  the  Mennonite,  Paul  Kuster,  of  Germantown,  and  if 
the  records  were  accessible,  it  could,  it  may  be,  be 
carried  still  further  back  to  that  Peter  Kuster  who  was 
beheaded  at  Saardam,  in  1 535.  Another  of  the  descen- 
dants of  those  earliest  emigrants,  the  youngest  general 
of  the  war,  planted  his  victorious  flag  upon  the  ram- 
parts of  Fort  Fisher.  The  Schwenckfelder  forefathers 
of  Hartranft,  major-general,  governor,  and  once  urged 
by  this  State  for  the  presidency,  lie  buried  along  the 
Perkiomen.  He  who  reads  the  annals  of  the  war  will 
find  that  among  those  who  did  the  most  effective  work 
were  Albright,  Beaver,  Dahlgren,  Heintzleman,  Hoff- 
man, Rosecrans,  Steinwehr,  Schurz,  Sigel,  Weitzel 
and  Wistar. 

The  liberties  of  the  press  in  America  were  estab- 
lished in  the  trial  of  John  Peter  Zenger.  Man  never 
knew  the  distance  of  the  sun  and  stars  until  David 
Rittenhouse,  of  Germantown,  made  his  observations 
in  1 769.3  The  oldest  publishing  house  now  existing 
on  this  continent  was  started  by  Sauer,  in  Germantown, 
in  1738.  The  first  paper  mill  was  built  by  Ritting- 
liiiyseh  upon  the  Wissahickon  Creek,  in  1690.4  The 
German  Bible  antedates  the  English  Bible  in  America 
by  nearly  forty  years,  and  the  largest  book  published 
in  the  colonies  came  from  the  Ephrata  press  in  1749. 
From  Pastorius,  the  enthusiast,  of  highest  culture 
and  gentlest  blood,  down  to  Seidensticker,  who  made 

3.  He  was  born  in  Roxborough  Township  near  Germantown. 

4.  It  was  on  a branch  of  the  Wissahickon. 

8 


him  known  to  us,  the  Germans  have  been  conspicuous 
for  learning.  To  the  labors  of  the  Moravian  mission- 
aries,  Zeisberger  and  Heckewelder,  we  largely  owe 
what  knowledge  we  possess  of  Indian  history  and 
philology.  Samuel  Cunard,  a descendant  of  Thones 
Kunders  in  the  fifth  generation,  established  the  first 


line  of  ocean  steamers  between  America  and  England 
and  was  made  a British  Baronet. 

If  you  would  see  the  Work  of  the  American  Germans 
of  to-day  look  about  you.  Is  there  a scientist  of  more 
extended  reputation  than  Leidy?  Is  there  a more 
eminent  surgeon  than  Gross?  Who  designed  your 
Centennial  buildings,  and  in  whose  hands  did  you 
trust  the  moneys  to  pay  for  them?  The  president  of 
your  University,  the  most  enterprising  of  American 
merchants,  and  the  chief  justice  of  your  State  are  alike 
of  German  descent.  The  great  bridge  just  completed 
after  years  of  labor  and  immense  expenditures,  which 
ties  Brooklyn  to  New  York,  was  built  by  a German. 
The  financier  of  the  nation  during  the  Rebellion 
undertook  to  construct  a railroad  from  the  greatest  of 
the  inland  seas  to  the  widest  of  the  oceans.  He  fell 


beneath  the  weight  of  the  task.  'A  German  com- 
pleted it. 

But  the  time  allotted  to  me  does  not  permit  me  to 
more  than  suggest  a few  points  in  the  broad  outlines  of 
German  achievement.  The  hammer  of  Thor,  which, 
at  the  dawn  of  history,  smote  upon  the  Himalayas, 
now  resounds  from  the  Alleghenies  to  the  Cascades. 


9 


The  Germanic  tide,  which  then  began  to  pour  into 
Europe,  has  now  reached  the  Pacific.  In  its  great 
march  covering  twenty  centuries  of  time,  it  has  met 
with  no  obstacle  which  it  has  not  overcome,  it  has 
been  opposed  by  no  force  which  it  has  not  overthrown, 
and  it  has  entered  no  field  which  it  has  not  made  more 
fruitful.  America  will  have  no  different  story  to  tell. 
The  future  cannot  belie  the  past.  Manners  and  insti- 
tutions change,  the  rock  crumbles  into  dust,  the  shore 
disappears  into  the  sea,  but  there  is  nothing  more 
permanent  than  the  characteristics  of  a race.  Already 
the  rigidity  and  angularity  which  Puritanism  has 
impressed  upon  this  country  have  begun  to  disappear ; 
already  we  feel  the  results  of  a broader  scope,  a sterner 
purpose  and  of  more  persistent  labor.  And  in  the 
years  yet  to  be,  America  will  have  greater  gifts  to  offer 
unto  the  generations  of  men,  will  be  better  able  to 
attain  that  destiny  which,  in  the  providence  of  God, 
she  is  to  fulfill,  because  she  has  taken  unto  herself  the 
outpourings  of  that  people  which  neither  the  legions 
of  Caesar,  nor  papal  power,  nor  the  genius  of  a 
Bonaparte  were  able  to  subdue. 


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